Patrick Rodgers left Ireland for America circa 1843 at age 10 without his family, arrived in California in 1855 for the Gold Rush, and in 1868 he and his wife Mary Ann bought this 149-acre site to grow wheat. The Rodgers, along with eight other families, became Pleasant Hill's first pioneers. In the late 1800's, during the "Second California Gold Rush," when California recorded its highest U.S. wheat production, the ranch became a successful household farm that outlasted much larger bonanza farms. Patrick died in 1891 and Mary Ann in 1893, and both are buried at St. Catherine's cemetery in Martinez, California.